Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Soames, to his place. We go back a long way—30 years in the Commons. I recall that when he and I were on those Benches, he always did his homework.
There is feedback on the line at the moment.
I have been a dissenting voice on this issue on a number of occasions. I support NATO, and I have supported wars in central Europe, the Falklands, and even Iraq, which I argued for in Washington—but this is different. If we had troops on the ground, I would be loyal, but we do not. We are fighting a proxy war. To date, 8 million have fled the conflict, with 6 million internally displaced.
I believe that a series of miscalculations and missed opportunities have provoked a worldwide economic crisis that could have been avoided. I confess that I have no practical hands-on experience of foreign policy management, but I have followed in detail developments in foreign affairs over three decades. In my analysis, Russia’s oil blockade response was predictable, as was its impact on the oil price and the explosion in wage inflation. Both have consequences. The people paying the price are the unemployed, the poor, the rent and mortgage payers, the elderly poor and those struggling on marginal incomes. The impact on those with resources has been minimal. Millions in poverty now rely on friends, food banks and social centres while the stock market booms.
In truth, the world is changing. New alliances are being forged; trading patterns are changing; Russia is forging stronger trading links with China, India and parts of Africa. These changes have consequences for our alliances and trading patterns in the longer term. I ask myself: are we getting it wrong? I go back to a time of hope, when my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen met Putin in October 2001, following the final years of Yeltsin’s presidency. It had ended in an atmosphere of suspicion, following years of argument over NATO’s expansion. It is that which stands at the  heart of today’s impasse. Russia had been humiliated with a collapsed economy and a loss of strategic influence. Genscher, as early as 1990, had recognised this and assured the Russians at Tutzing that there would be no NATO expansion to the east. Baker, to assure volatile rocking public opinion, gave similar assurances to Gorbachev. Indeed, it was Gorbachev’s willingness under duress to show flexibility in response on NATO that cost him the leadership in favour of Yeltsin.
Yeltsin himself showed huge statesmanship in seeking to square the circle, but he too fell when he could not deliver, giving way to Putin—his protégé. As Yeltsin had made clear in the arguments over Ukraine and NATO, the loss of Ukraine would upset the balance in former Soviet states, between Slav and Islamic nations, creating an Islamic majority, most of which carried an overlay of debt. We should at least try to understand the background.
However, the Russians then sadly made the catastrophic mistake of meddling in Chechnya—again, the Islamic factor. In doing so, they played right into the hands of the later expansionists. On reflection, I believe that we misread the problem. My own two speaking visits to Moscow during that period left me with a clear impression of Russian fears. In the Second World War, we lost 500,000 dead; they lost 25 million—50 times more. Nearly one in four Russians died. Surely that provides us with an explanation for Russia’s obsession with the external threat, which Putin is now ruthlessly using to justify his response to NATO expansion. I ask colleagues: are we really listening to their concerns? No. Do we ever stop to consider the impact on Russian public opinion of prospective NATO status for a ring of states, from Finland in the north to Georgia in the South—hitherto non-nuclear, neutral states—pointing nuclear weapons at Russia? No.
What of the Azov brigades, with their historic connections and their impact on Russian public opinion? Why have we compromised Germany into supplying tanks in the face of German public opinion, ever conscious of Russian memories of World War II? By our actions and inactions on all these counts, we are ignoring the credibility of a brutal Putin-driven Kremlin propaganda machine within Russia, exploiting these matters.
Where do we go from here? I believe we need to set out our bottom-line war aims and feed them into Russia, using every propaganda tool available and challenging disinformation, using the written word, telecommunication from satellite links, the internet, audio communication in all its forms, intel and the underground media. We should be proposing a settlement that avoids humiliation of a proud nation. We cannot blame the Russian people for the sins of a brutal, cruel leadership that keeps them in information lockdown and ignorance of the truth.
We need to bypass the Putin machine, and talk of a settlement based on, first, a ceasefire and withdrawal of all Russian and Ukrainian combat forces, including the Asov battalions, from the Donbass; and, secondly, the recognition by Ukraine of separate regional devolved status under Ukraine sovereignty of the Donetsk and Luhansk, one of which is majority Russian-speaking, the other not. Then we need the reversal of Ukraine’s  decision to ban the official use of the Russian language in the Donbass; an agreement on Russian access to arrangements for the Crimea; and the rejection of any NATO application by Ukraine under an agreed review timetable of up to 20 years—or earlier, depending on the negotiations. Finally, we need the retention of non-nuclear barrier status under the agreed review timetable.
In closing, I must express my admiration for the Ukrainians, families and military alike, and their belief that their strategy is right. They have been prepared to lay down their lives in the face of escalating levels of brutality. I argue not with their laudable objectives in pursuit of liberty; I argue only with the detail of the strategy that they have set out to pursue, and warn of the real dangers of escalation, perhaps nuclear, for the whole world.

Lord Shinkwin: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Cormack and a real privilege to contribute to a debate on such a critical issue of our time.
I confess that although—like all noble Lords, I sense—I was horrified by what unfolded on our screens on 24 February last year, I was originally cautious on Ukraine. Of course we should support Ukraine, I thought, but in moderation, in solidarity, careful not to provoke the Russian bear for fear of the consequences. I no longer hold that position. Others have referred to the torture, the rape and the sheer brutality. In light of the overwhelming evidence of the calculated barbarity that informs Russia’s criminal war strategy, I no longer believe that the position I held is still tenable. As other noble Lords have said, only one side can win, and that needs to be Ukraine. I therefore believe now that the West needs to do everything possible to help Ukraine to win as quickly as possible.
My noble friend Lord Soames, in his powerful maiden speech, reminded us of the “terrible lessons” of history, which of course his grandfather played such a prominent part in shaping, to the benefit of the world. For me, this situation—Russia’s aggression in Ukraine—threatens us as much as did Hitler’s marching into the Rhineland only 87 years ago, swallowing up independent Austria two years later and occupying first the Sudetenland and then the rest of what was Czechoslovakia within a matter of months—and all without a military response until it was too late.
With the luxury of hindsight, we now know that this was a drumroll for another criminal war of aggression. Surely it teaches us both that we need to invest at scale in our Armed Forces, as my noble friend Lord Soames said, and that we do not have the luxury of waiting for hindsight, especially in the much faster-paced world that we live in. In his memorable address yesterday, to which other noble Lords have referred, President Zelensky  spoke about the need to defeat the fear of war in order to enjoy peace. As we all know, he thanked us in advance for planes to help secure that peace.
My question to my noble friend the Minister is this: since the Prime Minister has made the welcome commitment that we should train Ukrainian pilots, exactly how far in advance of those pilots actually being able to use that training was President Zelensky thanking us? We talk about ruling nothing out in the long term, but can my noble friend tell the House how long term is long term when Ukraine is being reduced to rubble now, in the short term? I do not know what the Russian is for long term, but I doubt it is a word that Putin uses much in connection with his battle plans in Ukraine.
If, as anticipated, Russia launches a new offensive within the next few days, possibly the next few weeks, how much worse does it need to get—how many of the new tanks that the West is supplying need to be destroyed by enemy fire—before we say, “Actually, let’s commit now to supply the planes to protect them from attack from the air”? Training needs to come first, of course. No one is disputing that, but surely now is also the time to assure the Ukrainians that once the training is completed the planes will be made available, and quickly. President Zelensky told the press conference that some of his pilots have already been training for two and a half years of the three years required.
I appreciate that I am not the only one wondering, if Putin triumphs in Ukraine, how long it will be before the Baltic states, Poland, the Czech Republic and others, including us, are threatened directly as well. I know that the noble Lords, Lord McDonald of Salford and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who is no longer in his place, referred to our front line. If the front line were to shift beyond Ukraine, which it could well do if the Russians actually get their act together, how long is long term then?
We can still avoid the scenario where we come under direct threat, but I believe we can do so only if we act now to give Ukraine what President Zelensky said it needs now. We can tell ourselves that we are the ones doing the protecting and that we can afford the luxury of thinking long term. But what if the reality is different and, as my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones said, their fight is our fight? What if Ukraine is actually protecting us and time is not on our side?